Text: Computer Organization & Design: The Hardware/Software Interface, 2nd ed., Hennessy and Patterson
Class: MWF 10:20-11:10 320 McGregory
Lab: Mon 1:20-3:20 pm 310 McGregory
Office Hours: Mon 9:00-10:00, Weds
2:00-3:00, Fri. 9:00-10:00
The purpose of this course is to develop an understanding of how an abstract specification of a method for solving a problem, e.g. a computer program, can be instantiated in a physical system, e.g. hardware, which carries out the method and provides an answer. This will include the study of the physical devices which provide the basic mechanism, transistors, the arrangement of transistors into circuits which provide basic logical operations, the combination of logical gates and other devices into more complex circuits which can instantiate the operations and memory of a computer, the representations of data and instructions for such devices, and the languages used to communicate with the computing devices. We will also consider the basis of design decisions for building a computer, some of the trade-offs that are made to develop a powerful, yet efficient system.
Working with a machine is an integral part of such a course. Our text uses as its example architecture the MIPS R2000/R3000 RISC architecture, a good representative of RISC-based computer architectures. We will study this architecture using the SPIM simulator which is available on the linux systems in the C.S. laboratory. There is also a Windows version of the SPIM simulator available.
Grades: 12.5%
each hour exam
20% final
40% labs
10% homework/classwork
5% paper